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September 01, 2016

Three Common Objections to the Personhood of the Holy Spirit

In my last post, I outlined a straightforward and concise argument for why Christians believe the Holy Spirit is a person. Namely, I demonstrated from Scripture that the Holy Spirit has a will, a mind, and emotions. Since these are the attributes of persons, not impersonal forces, it is better to understand the Holy Spirit as a person.

Let’s now turn to the three objections that were offered to me in response to my case.

The Holy Spirit language is a personification. My Witness guests did not attempt to deal with the specific texts that I presented; rather, they dismissed these verses as personifications. A personification is when personal qualities are attributed to something impersonal. They admitted that some passages appear to portray the Holy Spirit as a person, but said this is merely a literary device.

There are many problems with this response. First, it is a blanket assertion that ignores the specific context of the personhood passages. This response does not even attempt to honestly exegete each passage.

Second, it assumes what needs to be proved. When a Jehovah’s Witness comes to a straightforward personhood passage (e.g. 1 Cor. 12:11; Rom. 8:27; and Eph. 4:30), they assert that it must be a personification. But how do they know it’s a personification? Because they have already assumed the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force. This is reasoning in a circle. Jehovah’s Witnesses need to show that the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force before they can even begin talking about supposed personifications. But this is exactly what they cannot do.

Third, there are many instances that cannot be explained away by a personification. For example, what does it mean to grieve (Eph. 4:30), or to blaspheme (Matt. 12:32), or to lie to (Acts 5:3), a personified impersonal force? In addition, the Holy Spirit speaks to individuals at historical events. For example, in a meeting at the church at Antioch, the Holy Spirit says, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them” (Acts 13:2). This is the Holy Spirit using person pronouns of Himself. It appears the Spirit thought Himself to be a person, not a personification.

The Holy Spirit lacks a name. My Witness guests were adamant that if the Holy Spirit is a person, then He would have a name. They stated, “Since no name is mentioned, the Holy Spirit is not a person.”

This is a deeply fallacious argument. Just because the Holy Spirit is not given a personal name in the New Testament, that does not mean He isn’t a person. Spiritual beings are not usually named in the Bible, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t persons. For example, at the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry, Jesus heals a man with an unclean spirit (Luke 4:31-36). Notice that this demon is both unnamed and a person. Furthermore, spirits are routinely identified by a particular characteristic. This was an unclean spirit.

In the same way, the Holy Spirit is identified by His chief characteristic: holiness. If the Holy Spirit can’t be a person because we don’t know His personal name, then all the angels and demons in the Bible who are unnamed can’t be persons either.

The Holy Spirit fills people. My Witness guests offered one last argument. If people are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the Holy Spirit cannot be a person. “How can one person be filled with another person?” they asked. “It makes more sense to be filled with an impersonal force.”

Again, this argument is demonstrably false. As already discussed, undisputed spiritual persons, like unclean spirits, have the ability to enter into human persons. This doesn’t disqualify them as persons, so why would it disqualify the Holy Spirit?

Moreover, our personal God is said to fill things. If God’s presence can fill the temple (2 Chron. 5:14), or fill the whole earth (Num. 14:21), then why is it so hard to believe that the Holy Spirit could fill believers? In fact, Paul calls our bodies the “the temple of the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor. 6:19).

These responses were very instructive. Rather than address explicit texts raised against their view, the Jehovah’s Witnesses I spoke to relied on circular reasoning and demonstrably false argumentation. The Watchtower position that the Holy Spirit is an impersonal force simply cannot be supported by the testimony of Scripture.

Comments

Related to the concept of being filled by the Holy Spirit is the idea of the Spirit being "poured out," as in Acts 2. Witnesses will often ask how a person can be "poured out." However, this phrase was used several times in Scripture of persons, and apparently had a metaphorical or idiomatic meaning that first century Jews would have understood. See, for example,

Job 30:16 "And now my soul is poured out within me; days of affliction have taken hold of me."

Psalm 22:14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast;

Php 2:17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all.

2Ti 4:6 For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come.

If Job, David and Paul were all persons and were said to be "poured out," there's no reason to believe that the Holy Spirit could not be a person and also be "poured out."

Indeed, the idea of "pouring" is metaphorical even if we were to regard the Holy Spirit as being a force. One does not "pour" gravity or electricity or the wind. Are JWs saying that the Holy Spirit is a liquid?

Another argument I've heard comes from Jesus statement that no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son. If the Holy Spirit were a person, then he'd know and be known by the Father and the Son.

"....Here, Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as a Counselor who is going to come and help to teach the disciples. It is very interesting that John actually violates Greek grammar in order to emphasis the personhood of the Holy Spirit. How does he do that? The word “spirit” in Greek is neuter – to pneuma. That doesn’t mean that the Holy Spirit is neutral, that he is not a person, any more than in German if you said das mädchen, “the girl”, means that girls are neuter. It is just that in Greek it has a neuter pronoun for the word “spirit.” But John uses the masculine pronoun for referring back to the Holy Spirit. Instead of saying “when the Spirit comes, it will guide you in all truth” he says “He will guide you.” He uses the masculine pronoun even though it has a neuter antecedent – which is actually violating grammar – in order to emphasis that we are talking here about a person who is going to be in us and with us and guiding us...."

Another objection I've heard is that if the Holy Spirit is a person of the triune Godhead, it is surprising that the Holy Spirit is not prayed to in the New Testament. It seems that the Father is predominantly prayed to, and Jesus is spoken to in visions and prayed to (for instance the marathana prayer, in 1 Cor.16.22), but the Holy Spirit is not the recipient of prayers. Often modern worships songs directly address the Holy Spirit in prayer; may I ask why you think there is an absence of prayer to the Holy Spirit, and whether it is legitimate, biblically, to pray to the Holy Spirit. Thank you

This whole line of reasoning seems so strained when once I recall the definition of the concept of "God's Name" as I had been taught: The Name of God is all forms in which He reveals himself to us in the ways that He will bless us and save us." Or, better, God's Name is Who He is and what He does.

>> may I ask why you think there is an absence of prayer to the Holy Spirit, and whether it is legitimate, biblically, to pray to the Holy Spirit. Thank you

An excellent observation, John. I find that in matters of prayer, the Holy Spirit, as the Comforter (Paraclete, John 14:16)is the facilitator of true spirituality. Thus in prayer life, He answers prayer (as in Acts 4: 23-31; 6:2; 12:44) as expected of God. Even thinking of the shorn, repentant Samson, his prayer could only be resolved by the Spirit of God who had endowed that judge with spectacular strength.

JW: O come on...they mean the same. The Father is God-God. That's Jehovah.

C: The Holy Spirit is God-God. And the Bible does identify Him as Yahweh.

JW: What's this?

C: According to Hebrews 3, the Holy Spirit was tested in the wilderness. It is the Holy Spirit that says "your ancestors tested and tried me, though for forty years they saw what I did".

JW: So what?

C: According to Psalm 95 it was Yaheweh who said this. And in Exodus 17, it was quite clearly Yaheweh who was tested.

JW: OK....

C: There can be only one way that both are true: The Holy Spirit is Yaheweh.

JW: But that's your translation.

C: The New World Version describes it the same way. The New World Version also describes baptism as a thing to be done in a single name: "Go, therefore, and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit."

JW: Well, we do not deny that God the Father has the name Jehovah. And the Son has the name Jesus. But the Holy Spirit has no name.

C: The passage does not say "in the name of the Father and in the name of the Son and in the holy spirit." It does not even say "in the names of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit." One singular name is said to apply to all three. That singular name is, of course, Yahweh

Another argument I've heard comes from Jesus statement that no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son. If the Holy Spirit were a person, then he'd know and be known by the Father and the Son.

Matthew 11:27:

All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.

Is it too trite to suppose that the Holy Spirit has had this knowledge revealed to Him by the Son?